Sustainable hybrid nanocatalysts based on fundamentally new photoactive complexes with Earth-abundant metals

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Photoluminescent transition metal complexes are receiving increasing attention because of their technologically relevant photophysical and photochemical properties. In particular, the emerging demands of versatile agents for photocatalysis, bioimaging, chemical sensing, clinical treatments, solar cells, and electronic devices necessitate advances in photoactive transition metal complexes. Until recently, such complexes relied mostly on expensive and rare metals, such as platinum, ruthenium, or iridium, as well as lanthanides like europium or ytterbium. The desire of performing more sustainable chemistry motivates research on photoactive complexes made from Earth-abundant metals including for example iron, chromium, or molybdenum. For a long time, only comparatively few studies focused on photoluminescent complexes with these metals, but now the interest is increasing rapidly. However, some fundamental key challenges remain to be solved in order to make complexes based on Earth-abundant metals fit for applications in daily life. In parallel to these important developments, breakthroughs in nanomaterials motivated scientists to introduce photoluminescent (precious) metal complexes into inorganic nanostructures. These newly emerging hybrid nanocatalysts exhibit enhanced photophysical properties, promising catalytic performance, and improved versatility. However, until now this specific research domain focused almost exclusively on the incorporation of photoactive complexes with precious metals into nanomatrices, whereas almost no attempts to employ photoactive complexes made from Earth-abundant metals have been made. To fill this important research gap, the applicant proposes to develop novel heterogeneous nanocatalysts incorporating new types of photoactive Earth-abundant metal complexes, which possess improved photoluminescence properties and more robust catalytic activities in comparison with the homogeneous molecular catalysts. The proposed fundamentally new class of hybrid nanocatalysts could have substantial potential for versatile and more sustainable applications in lighting, sensing, energy conversion, and catalysis.